[1] I have been asked to discuss resources in the Lutheran
tradition that might undergird resistance to neo-liberal
globalization.1
This paper explores four interrelated theological streams running
through the work of Martin Luther.2 They are his eucharistic
economic ethics, his theology of Christ indwelling creation, his
refusal to minimize the pervasiveness of sin in human life, and his
insistence that in brokenness and defeat the saving God is present
and draws forth power. My comments focus on the first two, while
touching also on the latter two. Held together, these four streams
suggest moral-spiritual power for resistance to economic practices
that damage many who are impoverished, while enriching the
wealthy.3
Eucharistic Economic Ethics
[2] Luther's economic ethics and his eucharistic theology
are inseparable. A fruit of the Eucharist, "properly practiced," is
a communing community that attends to human needs and privileges
the needs of the vulnerable. Economic practices flow from the
Eucharist. Hear Luther speaking about the sacrament of the
table:4
"...by means of this sacrament, all self-seeking love is rooted
out and gives place to that which seeks the common good of
all."
"When you have partaken of this sacrament....your heart must go
out in love and learn that this is a sacrament of love. As love and
support are given you, you in turn must render love and support to
Christ's in his needy ones...."
"The sacrament has no blessing and significance unless love
grows daily and so changes a person that he is made one with the
others."
"In times past this
sacrament was so properly used, and the people were taught to
understand this fellowship so well, that they even gathered food
and material goods in the church, and...distributed among those who
were in need....this has all disappeared, and now there remain only
the many masses and the many who receive this sacrament without in
the least understanding or practicing what it signifies....They
will not help the poor...intercede for
others..."
[3] According to Luther, economic activity is intrinsically an
act in relationship to neighbor, and all relations with neighbor
are normed by one thing: the Christian is to serve the neighbor's
well-being, while also meeting the needs of self and household.
Widely accepted economic practices that undermine the widespread
good or the wellbeing of the poor are to be denounced theologically
by preachers,5
eschewed in daily practice, and replaced with
alternatives.6
About this Luther is vehement and specific.
[4] Economic life as practice of neighbor-love, according to
Luther, transgressed many norms of the emerging capitalist order in
his day. If time allowed, we would go through the levels of moral
discourse in his treatise called "Trade and Usury." Two norms
established therein and two rules derived from them illustrate.
Hear them in light of neo-liberal globalization.
[5] One norm: Because selling is an act toward neighbor, its
goal should be not profit but rather serving the needs of the other
and making "an adequate living" for self and
household.7
[6] A second norm: Economic activity should be subject to
political constraints.8 "Selling ought not be an act
that is entirely within your own power and discretion, without law
or limit." Civil authorities ought to establish "rules and
regulations," including "ceilings" on prices.9
[7] In accord with these and other norms, aimed at protecting
the poor, Christians are to follow firm rules in economic life. For
example, Christians ought not buy a commodity when cheap and then
sell when the price goes up. Nor are they to sell goods at the
highest price the market will bear.10
[8] Economic structures and practices denounced by Luther, for
the sake of neighborlove, also undergird the currently prevailing
global economic order. Luther's economic norms challenge specific
dynamics inherent in it; including severing economic activity from
accountability to bodies politic, elevating profit, rather than an
adequate living, as the goal of economic life, and pricing
commodities as high as the market will bear, where so doing
undermines the well-being of the poor. In more general terms,
Luther's impassioned economic ethics denounced free public market
activity that enabled a few to maximize profit at the expense of
the common good or the well-being of the poor.11 Many of his words speak
directly to the global economy today, mirroring the claims of its
critics. (I was reading Luther during the 1999 World Trade
Organization protests in Seattle. I discovered, to my great
surprise, that the words of Luther and of the protestors were, at
times, the same! I tested my perceptions out during a lecture at a
midwestern Lutheran college, reading quotes and asking people to
indicate whether the words were Luther's or the protesters.' The
audience could not tell!)
[9] My point is not to advocate a direct and uncritical
application of Luther's economic analysis or norms to the
contemporary situation. Given his inflammatory denunciations of
Jews, peasants, and Anabaptists, never are Luther's social analyses
or ethics to be adopted uncritically. So doing would lack
intellectual and moral integrity. Nor is my point to imply that
Luther was a progressive early anticapitalist. The implication
would be false, failing to acknowledge that his condemnation of
emerging capitalism and his crafting of alternative economic norms
and practices were not rooted in a bent toward progressive social
change (which was not within Luther's conceptual world). His
critique was rooted, social theoretically, in his conservative
defense of feudal social arrangements and prohibitions on
interest.
[10] Rather, the salient points are these: Luther's economic
ethics defied the emerging capitalism of his context. This
subversive nature of Luther's economic norms, and the moral power
for heeding them, derive from their theological foundation:
neighborlove, manifest in economic life, and empowered by Christ's
indwelling presence. Luther's economic ethic depends upon his claim
that God as the love of Christ actually comes to live within and
among the community of believers. That indwelling Christ-presence
is the power to love, and love is manifest in-though not only
in-economic life.
Christ Indwelling
[11] To that indwelling presence we now turn. It is the second of
the four theological streams considered here. According to Luther,
the God of unbounded love has made "habitation" in the community
gathered and sent forth by wine and bread. The finite bears the
infinite. Consider the implications for moral-spiritual power. As
unmerited gift, Christ comes to dwell within the assembly of
believers. The indwelling Christ, mediated by practices of the
Christian community, gradually changes it toward a manner of life
that actively loves neighbor by serving the neighbors' well-being
in every aspect of life. Hear Luther: "[T]his is...one of the
exceedingly great promises granted to us...that we should even have
the Lord Himself dwelling completely in us...."12 One in whom God dwells
"makes daily progress in life and good works...is useful to God and
[others]; through [that person]...[people] and countries
benefit...such a [person's] words, life and doings are
God's."13
"Christians are indeed made the habitation of God, and in them God
speaks, and rules, and works."14
[12] The centerpiece of Christian moral-spiritual power is the
crucified and living Christ dwelling in the community of believers,
the form of Jesus Christ taking form in and among those of
faith.15
Christians as objects of Christ's love become subjects of that
love. Faith is both "faith in Christ" and "faith of Christ."
[13] Let me be clear: For Luther, becoming dwelling place of
Christ and agent of Christ's love cannot be earned by human effort
and cannot earn salvation. Quite the opposite. Christ's indwelling
and transforming presence is pure unearned gift, and is a
consequence of salvation by God's grace alone. The significance is
moral and anthropological, not soteriological.
[14] Note too Luther's insistence that the change toward
neighbor-love is never fully completed in this lifetime.
"Christians are indeed called and made the habitation of God, and
in them God speaks, and rules, and works. But the work is not yet
complete; it is an edifice on which God yet works daily and makes
arrangements."16
[15] Luther's theology of God indwelling creation hints at
another source of moral power. Luther insisted that "...the power
of God...must be essentially present in all places even inthe
tiniest leaf."17 God "is in and through all
creatures, in all their parts and places, so that the world is full
of God and [God] fills all...."18 God as boundless,
justiceseeking love coursing through creation suggests that all
creatures and Earth itself may offer creative, saving, sustaining
power toward creation's flourishing. To think theologically about
the moral agency that flows from God inhabiting "every little seed"
and "all creatures" is to struggle for and with a concept that
barely exists in western Protestant ethics. Luther's indwelling God
opens that door theologically.
[16] The claim that the gracious mystery of God working toward
the flourishing of creation resides within and among all creatures,
considered by Christians in the context of neo-liberal
globalization, provokes countless questions. How may this
indwelling God-power be realized by people of economic privilege to
free us from immobilization in the face of neo-liberal
globalization, and free us for faithful resistance on behalf of the
Earth community and its cultures?
[17] Indeed, Luther hints at wellsprings of moral-spiritual
power stemming from a eucharistic notion of Christ filling all
things and turning earthlings into subversive lovers on behalf of
the widespread good and especially on behalf of the vulnerable.
This is important moral wisdom, especially for Lutheran communions
and their friends in faith. However, it must be admitted that we do
not need Luther to arrive here. Some Orthodox, Anglican, and
Catholic theologies; recent cosmic christologies and
eco-theologies; and some feminist relational theologies also play
out as God indwelling all of creation and working through all
creatures and elements to heal and liberate the entire household of
life.
[18] So what is the provocative pull of Luther? What is the
insistent tweak that says "plumb the depths here, because there is
more and the world is hungering for it"? Two things. They are the
third and fourth theological streams considered in this paper.
Pervasive Sense of Sin
[19] Third, Luther's sense of profound moral agency
flowing from the indwelling Christ is met with his equally strong
insistence on the pervasive presence of sin, the humanly
insurmountable reality of "self curved in on self." That we are se
encurvatus en se is a strikingly descriptive and deeply truthful
account of reality in the globalizing economy for the Global North.
According to Luther, it is not possible for us, by our own power,
to do the good as fully as we try to do it. Luther's paradoxical
moral anthropology speaks directly to the heart of life for
economically privileged people. Collectively, we are "selves curved
in on ourselves." We may long to live according to justice-making,
self-honoring love. That is, we may yearn to live without
exploiting neighbor or Earth. But look at us, and here I speak
contextually of the United States: a society so addicted to our
economic ways that we close our eyes to the death and destruction
required to sustain them. We do not see the vision of Mozambique's
Methodist Bishop Bernardino Mandlate, that our economic privilege
is bought with "the blood of African children."19 Needing expanding markets,
short-term financial gains, fossil fuels and inexpensive goods, we
will lie, kill, and support brutal regimes: the Taliban and Osama
Bin Ladin in their war against Russia, Saddam Hussein fighting Iran
(while he was gassing the Kurds), Marcos, Somoza. The drive to
dominate or exploit others is a drive of "self curved in on self,"
the polar opposite of serving the needs of others. Luther's
insistence that we are "selves curved in on self," unable by our
own power to be otherwise, is crucial as dialectical partner to his
claim that the indwelling Christ renders profound moral-spiritual
power. Only held together and in tension with each other can either
assertion truthfully describe who we are.
God Present in Brokenness
[20] Finally, Luther's paradoxical moral anthropology lives within
a theology of the cross. Where God seems hidden, there God is. As
expressed by Larry Rasmussen, "the only power that can truly heal
creation, is instinctively drawn to the broken and flawed places in
life, there is most fully known, and precisely there draws forth
power that you did not know you had." God is drawn into brokenness
in this world-including the complicity of some people with economic
ways that exploit others-and there God becomes lifesaving power
incarnate. Luther's theology of the cross and of Christ indwelling
and empowering the believing community, together, render the
promise without which, to open ones eyes to the data of despair
might be to drown in it. That "Christ...fills all
things"20 and
is present particularly in sites of suffering enables us to
acknowledge soul-searing economic brutalities that must be faced if
we are to resist neo-liberal economic globalization, and convert to
economic ways that enable just and sustainable communities and
Earth community for generations to come.
[21] We have entered mystery, the ancient faith claim that God's
love in Christ is "flowing and pouring" into the people gathered
and sent forth by wine and bread for justicemaking neighbor-love in
all aspects of life. That claim-as articulated by Luther and wed to
his eucharistic economic ethics, his refusal to minimize the
pervasiveness of sin, and his insistence that in brokenness and
defeat the saving God is present and draws forth power-points
toward moral-spiritual power for resistance to economic
arrangements that breed injustice. According to Luther, in the
communing community, the incarnate God bodies forth as
justice-making, self-honoring neighbor love, manifest powerfully in
economic life. Such neighbor-love in the context of neo-liberal
globalization is faithfully subversive.
This article was first published in Seattle Theology and
Ministry Review(volume 3, 2003).
Reprinted with permission.
© December 2003
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 3, Issue 12
1 The term-used more extensively in Africa, Europe, and
Latin America than in NorthAmerica-refers to the prevailing
paradigm of economic globalization, characterized by increasingly
"free" transnational trade and investment, and by the increasing
severance of economic activity from accountability to bodies
politic.
2 Adapted from a presentation for the World Council of
Churches, World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and Lutheran World
Federation Consultation on Ecclesiology and the Challenges of
Economic Globalization, December 11-14, 2002, Geneva. I have taken
the title for this article from Martin Luther, "Sermons on the
Gospel of John," in Luther's Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St.
Louis: Concordia, 1957), 26.
3 The remainder of this article is drawn from a longer
article, entitled "Globalization in Light of Luther's Eucharistic
Economic Ethics," published in Dialog: A Journal of Theology (Fall
2003).
4 The following statements are from Luther, "The Blessed
Sacrament of the Holy and True Body and Blood of Christ, and the
Brotherhoods," in Timothy Lull, ed., Martin Luther's Basic
Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989),
respectively on pages 260, 247, 251, 250.
5 Luther, "Admonition to the Clergy that They Preach
against Usury," Weimar Ausgabe 51.367, cited in Ulrich Duchrow,
Alternatives to Global Capitalism (Utrecht: International Books,
1995), 220-21.
6 Luther, "Trade and Usury," Luther's Works 45:
244-308.
7 Ibid., 250.
8 In contrast to the contemporary neo-liberal move to
"free" economic powers from political constraints.
9 Ibid., 249-50.
10 Ibid., 261, 247-51.
11 Luther, "Large Catechism," in Book of Concord, 397. In
"Large Catechism," see also Luther's comments on the 1st, 5th, 6th,
7th, and 9th/10th commandments and on the 4th petition of the
Lord's Prayer.
12 Luther, "Third Sermon on Pentecost Sunday," in Sermons
of Martin Luther, ed. John N. Lenker (Grand Rapids: Baker Books,
1983), 3: 316-7.
13 Ibid., 317.
14 Ibid., 317.
15 This sense of ethics as the form of Christ taking form
in and among the faithful is consistent with one of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's approaches to ethics, "conformation with the form of
Christ," as seen in his Ethics, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1995), Ch.
16 Luther, in Lenker, 3: 321.
17 Luther, "That These Words of Christ, 'This is My Body,'
etc. Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics," Luther's Works
37:57.
18 Luther, the Weimar Ausgabe 23.134.34, as cited by Paul
Santmire, The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise
of Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985),
129.
19 In a presentation to the United Nations PrepCom for the
World Summit on Social Development Plus Ten, New York (February,
1999).
20 Luther, "The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of
Christ-Against the Fanatics," in Timothy Lull, ed., Martin Luther's
Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989),
321.